22. Juni 2014

[ English
]

Making sense of the maker / FabLab / 3D-Printing Movement

What I came to realize – or, really, simply have reinforced – is that the “stuff that matters” is the process, not the product.

If, as a community of consumers, we can collaborate to understand more about our consumption, and more about the production of what we consume, and more about how we can effect, control, or drive that production, what we will have achieved is far more substantial than whatever comes out of a 3D printer.

· No one can kill a good idea
· Everyone can pitch in
· Anyone can lead
· No one can dictate
· You get to choose your cause
· You can easily build on top of what others have done
· You don’t have to put up with bullies and tyrants
· Agitators don’t get marginalized
· Excellence usually wins (and mediocrity doesn’t)
· Passion-killing policies get reversed
· Great contributions get recognized and celebrated

8. Februar 2014

[ English
]

Building an ideal world of work

What would work look like in an ideal world?

It would be free, in the sense that nobody would boss me around. I would choose on what to work on, changing where I put my effort with changing circumstances.

I would choose my own work environment, travel to where I need to be, and spend as much time as necessary on what needs to be done.

I would be connected to other coworkers who would be working on the same or similar things as me, and I would regularly meet people who did completely different, but somehow related things.

When rules are necessary, there would be a clear way on how they are set, and how they can be changed. Anyone could propose a rule, or a change to a rule, and there would be a process of how anyone impacted would participate in the decision making.

We would know why we do the work. Payment would be incidental: It's not what the work is about. If I needed money, or a different way to get paid, I would raise that to a specific person in my surrounding who would take care of it.

Work would be plentiful, with problems abundant. There would be a marketplace for problems and people willing to solve them.

What is missing now?

The marketplace for problems is not clear. There are plenty of problems, but few people standing up with them, exposing them, and being willing to work on them. I would like more clarity with "here, _this_ is the problem, who is going to help me?"

There are "job offers" and "positions" out there aplenty, but "jobs" bore me and "positions" lock me in. Give me a problem, I'll help solve it.

Questions of money are more simple now. Sales is joyful; I just wish I had more opportunity to do it. Where can I meet the people that I could potentially help? Where are the people that want to _do_ something about their own and their organisations' problems?

Let's do something

If you can help me get into conversations about organisational or individual problem solving, I shall keep you updated on what happens and will let you participate in any success that comes from it. roell.net and the sidebar at Röll & Korvenmaa have some words on what I can offer.

If you have a wicked problem to solve, a project to realise, a group to bring to coherent action, let me know and I'll see how I can help.

If you know someone in Tampere or elsewhere in Finland, who'd be willing to hire me for a long-term project (it can start as a short-term experiment), please connect us. I'd love to spend more work time in Finland.

In an ideal world, what would work look like for you? How is that different from what it is now? Do write.

Unlike the teaching project, these instructions do not use scaffolding, so the entire process seemed a lot more clunky. It did help really understand basics, though. routes and actions and methods are not suspicious anymore.

On the side I learnt that Ruby on Rails understands that the singular of "people" is "person" and so I was saved from having to rename classes (which apparently is a major hassle in RoR) and could simply continue. Nice.

Half-way in, I realised that I had forgotten to set up a repository / version control system / git, so I quickly did it, following these instructions. (More on Git in Day 2's post).

21. Dezember 2013

[ English
]

Learning Ruby on Rails, Day 2 (Git Repository, GitHub)

I continued following my online course and set up a local code repository using Git. I studied some Git Basics before proceeding to set up an account on the public shared code repository GitHub. This was helpful, because I was familiar with CVS (Concurrent Versions System, a different version control system) and Git has quite a different model.

Every time you commit, or save the state of your project in Git, it basically takes a picture of what all your files look like at that moment and stores a reference to that snapshot.

Git appears very well thought-through and quite accessible to me. I was glad for the straightforward instructions and explanations.

I created an online repository on GitHub for the course's test project ("facebook on rails") and generated the test project locally (that's a one-liner command on the Terminal - you basically say "rails, make me a new project" and it generates the complete directory and file structure to get going). I connected the local project to the online-repository following simple steps.

I set up the connection between my local git repository and my GitHub account based on HTTPS as described here rather than using SSH as described in the course. I will see if this bites me in the ass later.

The course proceeds in opening the project sourcefiles in an editor. (I took the opportunity to check out the recommended Sublimetext, otherwise I use Smultron). It looks overwhelming at first.

A controller ("pages") with an action ("home") is created via the command line. At this point I couldn't really figure out what that means, but the result is that the app, running on my local server, now has a homepage that I can edit. The source directory shows a section for the controller, and one for the view (_of_ the controller _with_ its action if I understand correctly). The view is HTML-code at the moment, in an .html.erb file.

My upcreeping anxiety was pacified by a brief review of Model View Controller basics. Maybe that time at university actually served for something.

The "controller" seems to be "what the thing actually does" (in this case: "make pages"), the "action" "one way of doing the thing" (in this case: "make a page of the type 'home'"), the "view" is "how the thing shows up" (in this case: <H1>Hello, World</H1>)

I proceeded to download Bootstrap, a framework for fast front-end development and set it up in my test project. (Very straightforward: you drop some .js and .css into two folders and connected them to the app with two lines in files in the "assets" directory. Simple.) Tested it on the local server: works. "Hello World" looks prettier now.

git status shows me what has changed in my local repository: There have been a number of new files added to the project (the new controller, view and assets) that are not yet tracked in git.

I would have missed this: New files dropped into the project directory need to be explicitly added to the repository for tracking. They don't get added/tracked automatically. Good to know.

There are also some modified files marked "not staged for commit": Local files need to be explicitly staged to then be committed to the repository in a next step. They don't move to the staging area or the repository automatically.

[ English
]

Learning Ruby on Rails

Today, I began my journey to learn Ruby on Rails. I have a specific application in mind that I would like to develop, and another one to which I would like to be able to contribute to. This is why I am learning. I will document my process here.

14. März 2013

[ English
]

Much work

I haven't kept up with a daily rhythm blogging here, but then I never had a daily rhythm, or the ambition to build one, anyway.

I have been busy preparing for and working on a new project, analysing a research project's survey data. The schedule has been tight, so I locked myself up and crawled into datasets. It has been more fun and more interesting than I thought. Analytical work is good. Grounding.

I enjoy working at The New Factory: I really like the space, it helps me to concentrate. It's nice enough to want to go there, and ugly enough to not stick around too long. I come, I get work done, I meet people and chat a bit, and go. Back into town.

(The Salad Bar, in Tampereen Kauppahalli is one of my favourite lunch places. Susanna, the owner, is a friend and former client of mine.)

"On the other side of the world" is what it sometimes feels being here. The language is so different from anything I know. Sometimes it feels that everything here is somehow separated and very far apart from what I used to know.

And then it is just two hours flight to be back where the ground is green (not white) and it's warm (not cold) and there are _so many people_.

RyanAir flies Bremen-Tampere and back / Green grass, on a business trip to Germany, February 18th

I am finding a connection between the two and getting a sense of the distance: Where is Germany? Where is Finland? What can I do, being here? What can I do over there? What are the connections? Is there value in making, or being, a bridge?

Business has been good here. In one of my first weeks after deciding to stay here, I walked into a crowd in Uusi Tehdas, introduced myself and said: "I have two empty hands. I can do things. Come talk to me." And people came (talk about the Finnish being shy) and I had work. (Forget Marketing. Study the Ten Oxherding Pictures.)

I would like to settle in one place again, or maybe in two places. :-) One could be here, in Tampere, the other in Germany, maybe in no specific place there. Another Bahncard 100?

Business is important. I enjoy work. Give me a good project and a bit of security in it and I am likely to go to where it requires me to be. And travel a lot. Can't help it. I like travel.